Santorum, who has been largely invisible in the polls throughout the campaign season, is now beating the other evangelical choices and has a clear shot at victory Tuesday night.

But political analysts note there’s little time for Santorum to cash in and regroup before New Hampshire, where voters weigh in nine days from now, while Romney is positioned to replicate what he’s done in Iowa in all the early states.

In four days of polling, Romney leads at 24 percent, Paul has 22 percent and Rick Santorum, 15 percent.

But if the final two days of polling stand alone, the order reshuffles: Santorum elbows out Paul for second.

“Few saw this bombshell coming,” GOP strategist David Polyansky said. “In an already unpredictable race this is another stunning turn of political fortune.”

…As for the rest of the field, over the four days of polling, Newt Gingrich is at 12 percent, Rick Perry, 11 percent, and Michele Bachmann, 7 percent. Their support remained relatively steady over the four days.

Are the Paul Pot Brigade all hung over and sleeping off the New Years’ inebriation?

Inquiring minds want to know.

jhump

If he loses, maybe they’ll pull a Heaven’s Gate event. Ron will be BO, they’ll just have to figure out who’ll be Peep. Can you imagine Craigie-poo in a sporty Nike jogging suit, possibly with a Habs logo on it?

Joe Paine

Every Ron Paul supporter I know will vote for Gary Johnson in November if Ron Paul is not the Republican nominee.

jainphx

If we can’t do better than those two schmucks, then we deserve what happens. Once again the elites are deciding who runs, and for what. This country is not going to turn around with out a real conservative and not anti semites and rhinos. LORD help us.

FedUp

I really hate that the election cycle is just starting, and already Mitt, the plastic RINO has been coronated! When did THAT happen??? A bunch of Iowans do not speak for me!

The Paul bearers are silent here because they are in Iowa working the street to get out votes……while Romney hits the nursing homes in NH hoping the elderly will sign away power of attourney to him after a live performance of his My Three Sons sit com dad act.

Sweet. We are so close to having a competent candidate…a great start to the new year.

Molon Labe

#5

So if all the Ronulians vote for Johnson, he’ll get seven votes. Ooooh that’s a landslide.

Molon Labe

The GOP is so clueless. Romney has no credibility. Ron Paul is crazy. Newt is your typical politician. I’d like to see Bachman or Santorium.

But if these two don’t make it I’ll be happy to see Obama win. I’ve always wanted to see if I can measure up to my ancestors that helped to found this country.

annonymous

Still way too close for comfort. I don’t care what anyone thinks of any other the other candidates, Paul needs to be marginalized and rendered irrelevant. Sadly, he seems to have a lot of support. Scary stuff.

FurryGuy

#4 January 1, 2012 at 5:14 pm
jhump commented:

If he loses, maybe they’ll pull a Heaven’s Gate event.

They didn’t when their false Messiah failed to win a single primary in 2008, so doubtful they will do anything so permanent in 2012. They will just foam at the mouth muttering about conspiracies within conspiracies while doing nothing productive.

Perhaps the Ronulians awaiting the Mayan prediction of the end of the world? My guess is they’ll set up a travelling puppet theater. Descartes, JHP, JHarp, Paz, and Craig hand puppets singing “Hit the road Jack” to their mentor and god Ron Paul.

jorgen

So, being a mix of Obama and McCain is Romney’s winning formula. The only good thing one can say about Romney is that he at least is not Ron Paul.

Anyone consider that maybe none of the other candidates Deserve to win the nomination? Santorum, Bachmann, and Huntsman have been so focused on Iowa and New Hampshire that they’ve barely visited other states, and those visits were mostly during national debates. Perry’s campaign began folding right after his first debate. Gingrich I couldn’t believe even became a frontrunner, given that his list of “flip-flops” is even longer than Romney’s. And Cain … well, we don’t have to talk about Cain because he’s no longer in the race.

Romney and Paul have two things in common: One, they’re not very well-liked by the establishment (yes, the establishment looked just as hard for a Not-Romney as the Tea Party did); and two, they both have a floor of support higher than all the other candidates (yes, it’s a floor, not a ceiling). Every other candidate started in the single digits, jumped to between 25 and 40 percent in the polls, and then fell right back down into the single digits. Romney and Paul both stayed in the double digits the entire time. The two differences they have is Romney’s floor and his general favorability ratings are much higher than Paul’s. The “Anyone But Romney” crowd is much smaller than it looks. The percentage of people who would “never” support him is actually less than his base 25% support in the polls. And even the ABR’s, I suspect, hate Obama even more.

I’m making this prediction now: If Romney wins Iowa, then he will go on to win every single caucus and primary, not because he’s the “establishment pick”, but because the other candidates didn’t do enough to earn it.

If Ron Paul doesn’t win, I’ll just vote for Obama. Voting for anyone else won’t make a difference. If people want to die for misconstrued reasons in an unconstitutional war, then go fight. You can have your war. You can die; I won’t.

bg

++

Matthew #28 January 2, 2012 at 7:03 am

heck yeah, bring it here!!

i mean, make it hard on them for a change, you know, bomb US & our
churches, attack our villages, EID our roads, explode our oil reserves,
slit our throats at night, kidnap for ransom, rrob our banks, you know,
the usual stuff they do.. it’ll be fun , and we won’t have any losses on
foreign soil..think about it, we will respectfully die here.. yippee!! oh
wait, we can always pay the jirza, and save future generations by
teaching them how & when & why they should bow to MECCA.. /s/